Free I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas by Molly Harper

It’s one of life’s great, annoying mysteries,” I muttered.
    “Uh, because they are sticky, and if you didn’t wrap them, you’d just have one big lump of caramels,” Jane suggested.
    “Mystery solved,” I said. Eager to put Tess in a better mood, I asked, “So, Tess, how’s the restaurant? The mac and cheese alone should keep your tables filled.”
    “Great!” Tess enthused. “Folks seem to like having both vampire and human menu options. Word of mouth has spread around the vampire community, and we’ve gotten a few write-ups in Southern Living and Undead Epicure . And if the guy claiming to be a production assistant with Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives wasn’t a prank caller, we might end up with a segment on the Food Network. We’re packed every night. Jolene’s been on me about maybe opening a second location in Murphy, but I’m thinking about something a little smaller. Food trucks are all the rage now. So maybe I could open a truck with a limited Southern Comforts menu and warm blood on tap. We could set up at community events and the Main Street Square on summer weekends. It’s still a risk, but it’s not quite the same level of failure if I have to close down a food truck as it is to lose a restaurant.”
    Jane grinned, nudging Tess gently (for a vampire). “And you and Sam?”
    “Oh, Lord.” Miranda rolled her bottle-green eyes toward the ceiling.
    “What?” Jane asked.
    “You’ve got that unintentionally smug look that married people get when they’re weaseling marriage plans out of their single friends,” Tess told her.
    “That’s not—I didn’t . . . smug?” Jane sputtered. Andrea gave her a hard stare. “OK, I was a little smug.”
    “You were a smidge smug,” Jolene agreed.
    “We’re happy with the way things are right now,” Tess said. “Unless I get turned into a vampire—which, given the fact that I make my living as a chef, isn’t all that likely—and live another hundred years, I don’t think I will ever see the day when Sam and I are simultaneously ready for marriage. His divorce left him really messed up, and my fiancé leaving me for a dental hygienist didn’t do me any favors in the trust department, either. Really, we’re both happy this way. We love each other. We enjoy living together. We don’t see the reason to bring paperwork and special jewelry into it.”
    Unlike every girl on my dorm floor who made the same antimarriage speech, it sounded like Tess actually meant it. It was enough to give me hope that I might not be as romantically messed up as I believed. Maybe Tess was proof that waiting for the right guy and the right time was the mature, rational thing to do. Then again, Tess once injected Sam’s blood bags with essence of ghost chili to prove a point, so maybe she wasn’t the best role model.
    Also, Miranda was twitching, actually experiencing facial tics, as she was unwrapping caramels. She wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t make eye contact, and her hands were doing this weird clenching thing that was not productive in terms of unwrapping candy.
    “Miranda, are you OK?” Iris slid the caramels closer to her, then thought better of it and pushed them toward me. “Miranda . . . why do you look like you’re about to explode?”
    Miranda attempted a casual shrug and failed miserably. “It’s nothing.”
    Tess’s lips twitched as she measured out a second batch of butter and sugar into a saucepan. “Miranda.”
    “Nothing!”
    “Spill it, or we’ll have Jane poke through your brain,” Andrea told her.
    Jane protested, “That’s— Hey, I wouldn’t use my— OK, yeah, I totally would,” Jane told Miranda. “Tell, or I will scan you like airport security.”
    Miranda was so sheepish it was almost sad. “I maybe sort of found an engagement ring in Collin’s closet . . . behind some of his boxes . . . under some blankets. I just stumbled across it.” She covered her flushed cheeks with her hands. “Everybody in the room